Category: History

Some brilliant satirical comedy from Norm MacDonald and Kurt Vonnegut, followed by me blowing off some steam about this chick I used to know.

“You think the ancient Romans were smart? Look at how dumb their numbers were. One theory of why they declined and fell is that their plumbing was lead. The root of our word plumbing is plumbum, the Latin word for “lead”. Lead poisoning makes people stupid and lazy. What’s your excuse?”

-Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

Michiganders please shush up, don’t rain on my parade here.

Last week, I was logged onto a social media platform and was reading a post made by this really cute and fun chick I dated once or twice, and really did like spending time with, was asking her fellow social media performance artists for advice and/or money gifting so that her and her boyfriend could travel the world for free.

I had really good advice for her but I bit my tongue. Or whatever it is you bite when you refrain from popping off at the finger-tips with a sarcastic comment from a thousand miles away. I was traveling at the time when I held my tongue or whatever. Traveling on Uncle Sam’s dime. What they don’t tell us kids, though, is that our great Uncle Sam is a rapist. “You gotta pay the troll toll if ya wanna travel for free, ya lil bitch.” That’s what I wanted to say. It’s just more appropriate if I say it here. Safe bet.

HCC PoliSci class wanted a ONE-page response to the movie Vice. This is all I could fit on the page to say. Fuck war and fuck Dick Cheney,

I was just a teenager in 8th grade when I watched President George W. Bush address the nation as ‘under attack’ from the comfort of the orderly Oval Office desk in 2001. I did not know what kind of chaos was being brewed behind the scenes… being from a small town in upstate New York; and with the helpful influence of my father, a Marine Corps fire, crash, and rescueman (veteran), I later-deferred from going to school with most of my friends to instead follow in my father’s footsteps– I joined the US Air Force. There is little doubt the pro-war propaganda influenced the decision-making for myself and many like me, but I would argue that the anti-war rhetoric did not exist in cinema like it does today given the inevitable greater access to more and more accurate information available almost 2 full decades later. My main reaction from watching Adam McKay’s motion picture Vice is that: there is a good chance I would have never enlisted into the military in the first place, let alone re-enlist for a second 4-year term, had this film come out before I went to see the recruiter after turning 18 in 2006.

What bothers me the most about the film is not so much in the political issues of the film or having to rewatch history and rethink back to the trauma involved with the plane hijackings and terror that took place on that day. What really bothers me is not what took place some 17-18 years after the fact, on a Hollywood set, portrayed in a movie on a big-screen: it’s what’s going on in real life- like comments (or the lack thereof) from those portrayed in the film as hypocritical weaklings. Just 2 weeks after Vice was released to the public, Senator Liz Cheney says this of Christian Bale’s performance with a smirk and a grin on her straight face: “Christian Bale finally had the chance to play a real superhero and he clearly screwed it up.” I know I don’t stand angrily alone given the fact that Dick Cheney has remained silent since the film was released to the public. That makes me sick; surely he has something on his mind worth sharing?

I wrote a paper on the prohibition of marijuana and I would love for all of you to read it and share it so we can finally nip this bud right in the buds.

Just a quick post. Here’s a short paper I wrote for my polisci class at Hillsborough Community College. I hope you fucking love it and I hope you learn something.

As I argued in my initial reaction to the documentary film The Culture High (2014), the production seemingly purposely overlooked the initial prohibition of marijuana. Twenty-seven minutes into the film, the narrator asks the following questions (with my paraphrasing in parenthesis):

“If marijuana prohibition isn’t achieving the goals we think it should (i.e. if over 82 years, prohibition efforts have been a lost cause), what has caused it to be pursued the way it has? (i.e. why are most drug convicts minorities?) What are the elements that keep it propped up? (i.e. how could this possibly have lasted for 82 years based on what it’s actually based on?) And where did it all start?”

The Culture High, documentary, Amazon Prime Video

… and then, instead of pointing along with “most fingers”, “to the year 1937 when marijuana was first outlawed by a tax stamp required for hemp”… instead of actually providing information on the processes that occurred when it actually was outlawed, the narrator says “let’s fast forward 34 years to 1971”… when President Nixon is famously quoted saying “Drug Abuse” being America’s newly designated number one enemy to the immediate public. Drug Abuse is not marijuana, and this is where the film absolutely went off track– with over an hour and a half remaining.

The Culture High, documentary, Amazon Prime

With all that being said, for my outside references, I decided to use encyclopedias from the HCC Ybor Campus library to gather the facts I’d need to show what the film production omitted factually as I claimed above. Those unfamiliar with who Harry Jacob Anslinger was are missing key information to our nation’s history given arguably anyone alive in the world today knows someone who has somehow been affected negatively by the bogus marijuana laws that are in place in America today.

My first source was the Alcohol and Drugs in North America: A Historical Encyclopedia Vol 1 which is a $95 textbook on the market. In this encyclopedia, Harry Anslinger is quoted as “the individual most responsible for the War on Drugs mindset” (page 55), and is “most famous for his central role in the criminalization of marijuana.” He actually, coincidentally started working for the United Nations in 1970, just one year before Nixon is quoted in the film talking about that oh-so-dangerous drug abuse (according to drugpolicy.org, there were only 72,000 accidental drug overdoses in the year 2017, but we also know, according to the film, that cigarettes cause the death of over 5,500,000 accidental deaths every year, and we also know from the film that part of the reason for marijuana being outlawed was because it’s dangerous, but the facts do not back the claims whatsoever).

My second source was the Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol, & Addictive Behavior 3rd Ed which costs over $400 new on the market for the set– that’s some important information if it’s that expensive, right!? This source also backs the claim that Anslinger became the Chief US delegate to international drug agencies of the United Nations in the year 1970, where it also notes “much of his legacy remains current”. It’s mentioned that Anslinger was in the Narcotics Division of the Prohibition Unit from 1920-1930 when another infamous drug was prohibited, and we’re all allowed to know by now how that all worked out (talking about alcohol). Aside from the many quotes of Anslinger using racial slurs towards black and hispanic peoples, which easily translates over to the film where it mentions the difference in convictions between classes and races of people, aside from all of that, there are such written works titled the “Anslinger Papers” which prove he was aware of marijuana not being dangerous. And if the film wasn’t purposely misleading its audience over “when it all began” when the narrator could have taken it “to the year 1937 when marijuana was first outlawed by a tax stamp required for hemp” but didn’t take it there… did he maybe not take it there because the name of that tax was the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 and not the Hemp one?

Without discussing alcohol and tobacco deaths, without discussing the number of deaths associated with cancers and chronic illnesses proven to stem from poor diets, and without discussing actual war where the premise is to kill others with weapons over different beliefs, I think we can say that there are plenty of things we could much be better doing with our time than arresting people for carrying a plant on them that we know from several different research studies has never caused anyone to die, so I will leave off with this fact about policing the possession of marijuana in New York City (the italics are mine):

“…In those eleven years [2002-2012] the NYPD made a total of 439,056 possession-only arrests. Multiplied by 2.5 hours police time per arrest that equals 1,097,640 hours- or approximately 1,000,000 hours of police officer time to make 440,000 arrests. That is the equivalent of having 31 police officers working 8 hours a day, 365 days a year, for 11 years, making only marijuana possession arrests.”

I was reading a book outside while sitting in the sun and then I came across wisdom and I figured hey what the fuck I may as well share it, ja feel?

For future reference, if any of you are interested in what books I’ve read or are currently reading, I update my goodreads account fairly regularly. It’s like Facebook, except there are hardly any retarded people to ruin your feed… there’s always that one person though, statistically speaking of course…

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, beautifully written by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Here is the quote:

“The United States Magazine and Democratic Review summed it up by arguing that whereas European powers “conquer only to enslave,” America, being “a free nation,” “conquers only to bestow freedom.” . . . Far from antagonistic, “empire” and “liberty” are instrumentally conjoined. If the former stands to safeguard the latter, the latter, in turn, serves to justify the former. Indeed, the conjunction of the two, of freedom and dominion, gives America its sovereign place — its Manifest Destiny, as its advocates so aptly called it.” -Wai-chee Dimock, Historian, with regards to American media distorting public view/opinion during the 18th and 19th century, with regards to American internal affairs

It’s come to my attention several times that my writing is a little aggressive. Well, tough chocolate chip cookies, I’m writing with high-octane soulfulness. So, let me guide ye through another true story to gain perspective into my world of Hell.

Unlike some of the popular culture icons who threatened to leave The USA (and then didn’t) if the Giant Douche were to win , I was fully prepared to move to Costa Rica if this country were going to be led by the Terd Sandwich. She was the Secretary of State during more than half of my career in the military. I was deployed to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia in support of Operation: Iraqi Freedom, Operation: Enduring Freedom, and Operation: New Dawn during both the assassination of UBL and the Libyan ambassador assassination on 9/11/2011– is it weird to say that the entire mentality of our base did not seem to change after either of these events. Many of us were scratching our heads… “so, like, UBL is at the bottom of an ocean somewhere, soooo, do we go home now, or– ?” Even when the Government shutdown occurred, we still went to work and nothing seemed any different. So in November ’16 I went to sleep early while the votes were being counted and I dreaded opening my eyes when I woke up- afraid to learn the results. I was absolutely ready for a getaway to Costa Rica, but I was so thankful when I read the verdict as it stood.

How was Terd Sandwich even allowed to work as a government official let alone the Commander in Chief? Here comes the pitch.

Somewhere in the summer of 2013 when I was in the last 2 years of active duty I sponsored a first-term Airman who was coming to MacDill from his technical training in Mississippi. He was highly-motivated, extremely smart, and would become one of the most reliable people in our work-section, surpassing several of his superiors within just a short amount of hands-on job training. He joined the Air Force in hopes of landing a comfortable living while he gained experience and paid off his student loans. Because education isn’t cheap, especially earning an out-of-state bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League school in Upstate New York, this particular stellar performer would end up being relieved of his duties within about a year because he wasn’t able to obtain a Top Secret security clearance, which is required to work on some of the systems we were maintaining and managing.

The reason he wasn’t able to obtain the necessary clearance: the subject becomes a high security risk susceptible to bribery from adversaries when its personal debt is too high. So, if a few tens of thousands of dollars’ debt disqualifies an efficient person at a low level… then… like… what about someone like this at the highest one:

Top video is from CNN, bottom is from Terd Sandwich’s own campaign. Top video shows her not answering the question, bottom video shows 2 people not helping answer the question.

How is this happening? You heard her. “I honestly don’t know.” I’ve got some ideas, but they’re not popular because in mine- nothing is free. Do you want free school? Serve your country then. But make sure you don’t have debt before you join, because they probably will kick you out. But don’t worry, you can still run for President when you hit 37, and you can take reigns of command of the military you were once not allowed to serve in, I guess. What in the actual fuck, you guys? What? In the actual? Fuck?

You know what makes sense? None of this. “How could we possibly let a predator like Trump in the White House? What has this world come to?! Woe is meeeeee.” -misinformed silly geese

A brief introduction to the history of the core problem that needs addressing in the US of A.

(photo courtesy whitehouse.gov)

BLUF*

Ladies and gentlemen, in my world, everything is a joke but nothing is funny.

Here’s a history lesson I hope none of you will overlook. I’ve read, re-read, verified, re-verified, discovered, re-discovered, forgot, re-learned, and read some more. I’ve done so in light of the words written by numerous distinguished scholars, leaders, entrepreneurs, historians, war veterans, abolitionists, excavators, world travelers, shaman, journalists– artists in as many senses as infinitesimally possible within the confines of my finite time of enlightened senses. The information I’ve managed to gather over the last decade +$ome change has humbled me beyond a point of caring about much in life at all.

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I was once humbled to the point of homelessness. To the point of defeat and faulty existence. It was a sturdy reminder that human beings make mistakes, that they seemingly exist, and that it seems that I am one of them. Whoever I am and whatever it is that causes me to be how I am with perspective to all of my experiences moving my host through space and time is simply that alone, and it’s unfair to judge someone merely by the words that they had the nuts to publish for the wandering gossipers eyes to see and interpret. I will use a common analogy to tie in a corresponding factor– if I tell you“don’t think about an elephant” you will most definitely think about an elephant and you are inferior to me muahahahaha. Do not take my words to heart, if you have a problem with them(see: definition of‘offended’), just remember, with my flawed personality I’m provoking your flawed personality on purpose. For example, if you are Christian and you are offended when I tell you the Bible is a horrible book to be reading to children, no matter whether it’s read to it before or after that child is or isn’t sodomized, and this offends you– please forgive me and resume your prosperous journey to heaven. Rest in paradise, Mr. Bill Hicks.

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I simply do not have the time to apologize for the words I write. But there is truth in every joke, I can promise you that. I believe what was delved on in the long history of medicine in Food of the Gods(by Terence McKenna) will prove to be true and accurate information. I believe in the healing power and versatility of plants with regard to the various different uses and formalities, with the idea in mind that their benefits directly coincide with nature symbiotically, and they far-outweigh the negative factors they’re implied with, specifically when it comes to legality of plants that grow naturally all over the world as we know it. The“problem” with what my belief seems to be in this society is that it’s not popular, so it will never be“cool”until it reaches the right platform. Statistically speaking, my full name most likely lurks at the cold, damp bottom of a government hit-list because I’ve culminated enough data in my research to decide that whatever most** people seem to choose to believe is just, well, is just plain ol’ gahdam rawn-guh. Somewhere in the midst of all that lineage is an outline of documented holistic ritual artwork in the form of hand-painted symbols on the walls of caves in West Africa. The story behind the symbols is basically this in a nutshell: we were Sapiens but we weren’t always homo(did you know homo translates to‘wise’ in Latin)(did you know we stopped teaching the Latin language to our youth around the turn of the 21st century in this country?) anyways, without digressing any further, we were once hetero Sapiens, or whatever the opposite of homo is, and then we ate fungus that grew on the platter of cow poop, and then, as we evolved, the matter and make-up of the fungus further-developed our brains to full-blown-homo mode, and our Pineal gland became/re-became a thing, and fast forward through an undetermined amount of years in the form of estimated, scientifically-educated guesses(theories) injected via cultural language with history unraveling before us and only captured when recorded both objective/subjectively, and wham bam here we am, mah’fockizzz. Or, as Joe Rogan put it, we are monkeys on a rock flying around in space.

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Okay, taken with a grain of salt, all of the above- that is, I think I’m ready to finally get to the point.

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For the sake of argument, let’s assume a few high-ranking government officials are capable of exploiting their“power” in order to make a bunch of money by using a bureaucratic legal/justice system unfairly to their advantage– and accepting that possibility allows us to(for the sake of argument) assume that’s exactly what has-been and is-being. Here are the verified facts:

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In the mid-1800’s a man by the name of Warren Delano, an American… let’s call him a philanthropist because when a spade is a spade we call it a spade in this country, sailed to Europe to meet some drug-dealing buddies of his. Although it was illegal in China, Honeybadging Delano did not give a shit, and managed to acquire riches and wealth by smuggling opium forcefully into the Orient, which was successively passed down to his kin, which I will get back to that in a Florida minute. Now, China would go down in history as a once-great Empire that ate its own foundation from the inside out with the help of the side-effects that can be found on the side of prescribed pain-killer medicine containers today, some 150 years later. Not to quote the great George W, but to quote the great George W———“fool me once…” suttin’ bout shame.

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So?! Warren Delano and his mob of cronies tore apart a prospering nation by injecting its heart with opiates? “Why, I don’t see the problem here? What EVER are you getting at, young lad?

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Well, after the economy collapsed(Panic of 1857), all of Mr. D’s hard-earned, honest livings went to shit, and I’m assuming some bridges were burned and he wasn’t able to make the trip to Europe and that’s why he provided opium to the Union army during the civil war this time instead of going back to China to re-destroy it… after all, how do you sell opium to people who don’t have money, amirite? Blah blah yadatadablah, did you know the hypodermic needle was invented towards the beginning of The War[the Civil one in America, we’re well past the Opium Wars at this point– catch up, bruh]? Why stop at China when you can tear apart your own society at home right after!? Then, with all thanks being to God and his mysterious ways, Warren D was able to mount up and regulate on a clear dark night which happened to cast a clear white moon. Rumor has it, even, that he was trying to consume some skirts for the‘E, or something that sounds like that if you’re like me and not 100% sure on the song lyrics, and Warren D had much rejoice in his re-acquired riches. I reckon it’s a lot easier to REGULATE a large society consisted of highly-capable warriors when that band of warriors is strung out on morphine, but I’ve reckoned incorrectly many times before in the past. I do remember, way back when, one time I read a book, and I don’t remember what it was called, but everything about the book was great except the cover really fuckin sucked, but I decided I’d just look past the cover and grant the inside info for the taking, but that was just that one time.

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Anyways- I started wondering why the area of Tampa I frequented the most was named“Hyde Park”. And why Platt Street is named Platt Street. And why at the end of Platt Street there is a 30-foot statue of a man who wasn’t American and never actually set foot on America, and why that same guy has a federal holiday celebrated in his honor in this country, and why the person who created that holiday was the grandson of the guy who got richer than a goddesses golden vagina juice from illegally selling a by-product of a plant that rivals another naturally-growing plant, and why that rivaled naturally-growing plant was signed into prohibition by that same grandson of the opiate pirate when he became president, and why Oliver Platt was one of the most quote-unquote‘influential’ Senators of those times and there’s hardly any information about him readily available on the surface of the world wide web but of the little that is available, it’s known that many of the records in his office were destroyed after is sudden death from an unsuspected illness just weeks after yet another US Senator passed away from the same, and why there are historical text books written by Ivy League school professors that admit Columbus had nothing to do with this country but we still celebrate him like he did. I wondered a lot of that and a few other things. I still wonder how this was able to happen. I’ve lost friends and I’m losing friends because of the deceptive origins found in the poppy plant in question. It’s very unnecessary. It’s wrong and it needs to be fixed. One way to do that is hire an Attorney General who isn’t afraid to get the downtown-Dallas parade treatment, and have that AG de-schedule all of the substances which are being controlled by a bunch of buttheads on high horses to something more reasonable. I’ll save sugar, tobacco, alcohol, cotton and slaves for later.

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I’m halfway through reading Mark Twain’s first volume of his autobiography, and I learned that the 1,400 words he wrote each day were quite a lot, even for a writer… I found that pretty interesting because I’ve proven myself capable of hand-writing 4,400 in a small fraction of the day. And I planned on going far into all of this but I think this is a good stopping point for right now. Remember, this is just how I feel, so please make sure to stay classy out there, San Diego. “It’s just a ride.”

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*Bottom Line Up Front

**most does not mean all so if you’re offended you’re probably a most but there are exceptions to every rule, just ask the people who make the rules and if you’re not a most then they’ll tell you that some rules can be bent, but I’m like wait if my pool cue is bent isn’t it as good as broken?